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CHRONOLOGY 

A Period of 

THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS 




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California Chrono 

A Period of 

THREE HUNDRED AND 
FIFTY YEARS 

15104860 




Compiled by 

ORRA EUGENE MONNETTE. B. A. (J> B» K 

Governor, Society of Colonial War», 
and Vice President, Society, Sons of 
the Revolution, in the State of Califor- 
nia; Menaher of Huguenot Society of 
America; Society of Mayflower De- 
scendants; Order of Founders and 
Patriots: Order of Washington; Sons 
of the American Revolution. 

Also, member of California Genea- 
logical Society, Ne-vv £ngland Historic 
Genealogical Society, Ne-w York Gene- 
alogical and Biographical Society. 



LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 
1915 






Copyright 

1915 

by 

Orra Eugene Monnette 



SEP -I 1915 



Standard Printing Co. 

Printers 

Lo> Anflelea 

©CI.A4iloWi; 
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INTRODUCTION 



This "California Chronology" was prepared by the compiler and first 
appeared in the 1915 Year Book of the Society, Sons of the Revolution, in 
the State of California, entitled "Spirit of Patriotism." The illustration, as 
shown in the frontispiece, accompanied that publication. The other illus- 
trative features, excepting the title and descripive text affixed to each by 
the writer, have appeared in a souvenir issued by the Citizens National 
Bank of Los Angeles, depicting eight historical epochs of Southern Cali- 
fornia history. They are quite suggestive in connection with the facts 
presented in the main body of this work, although more or less allegorical 
in character. 

This chronology of California will bring to the reader and student 
positive knowledge and information concerning the splendid history 
belonging to the Western Coast of the United States, on the points of early 
discovery, exploration and romantic adventure, which do not so frequently 
receive prominent notation as does the early history of the Atlantic 
seaboard ; and while high tribute must be paid to the adventurer and colonist 
who made the settlement of the Eastern Coast of the American Continent 
both possible and permanent, likewise to the intrepid and courageous 
Spanish romancer and to the patient and zealous Franciscan friar must 
be given similar honor and credit for the like settlement and development 
of the Pacific Coast. 

The discovery and history of California are almost contemporaneous 
in chronicle and event with the exploration and colonization upon the 
shores of the Atlantic. Christopher Columbus antedated Vasco Nunez 
de Balboa, in his discovery of America as compared with the discovery of 
the Pacific Ocean, only by approximately twenty-one years. Hernando 
Cortes was on the Pacific Coast six years later, and California properly 
dates her history from the notable voyage and discovery of Juan Rodriguez 
Cabrillo in 1542. 

The first settlement on the Atlantic Coast was Saint Augustine, now 
in Florida, in 1565, but which was not continuous. The Jamestown settle- 
ment of 1607 and the landing of the Mayflower in 1620 are the early 
dates of American history; but the founding of the town of San Gabriel 
in later New Mexico in 1598, though not permanent, antedates the former 



by nine and the latter by twenty-two years. And, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 
is the second, oldest and permanent city in the United States. 

It is both interesting and historically important to note that King 
James I. of England, in making his second grant of land on the North 
American Continent, in Virginia, known as the Jamestown Charter, being 
dated May 23, 1609, without either knowing or appreciating the territorial 
limits of his grant, in fact so dedicated its boundaries as to include within 
it the greater portion of the present State of California. 

Therefore, California history and that of the Great West are just as 
ancient as that of Virginia and the New England States. Further, there 
was a romance, founded in the spirit of adventure, in the victorious conquest 
of new lands and in the almost fanatical search for treasure, which com- 
menced as the inspiration of early Spanish voyagers and continued even 
until the gold excitement in 1849, which is unequaled in comparison with 
the more commonplace trials and adventures of the early colonists in eastern 
North America. 

While the American Revolution was in progress in the original thirteen 
colonies, the foundations of California were being laid in most positive 
and permanent form. The boasted achievements of the Pilgrim and Puritan, 
and of the Huguenot are deservedly merited, but the Californians will ever 
possess and hold sacred a treasured memory of the Spanish cavalier and 
of the Franciscan friar. Their priceless heritage was the gift of Cabrillo 
and Father Junipero Serra, together with that of a faithful and zealous 
train of romantic adventurers and pious neophytes. 

It is believed that this will prove to be a handbook of unique interest 
and profitable study. It is correct and authentic, as it is founded upon 
careful and studious researches made with respect to every available source 
of California history, so far as now known or ever recorded. It is the first 
compilation in the nature of a chronology of California to this date under- 
taken by any one. If it meet with a generous reception, it will lay the 
foundation for a larger and more detailed compilation. 

Orra Eugene Monnette. 
Los Angeles, California, 
August 20, 1915. 



California Ckronology 

A Period of 
Three Hundred and Fifty Years 

1510-1860 



COMPILED BY ORRA EUGENE MONNETTE 



1510 

Origin of the name, "California," The name California is first 
used in a romance published in Spain in 1510 and written by Garcia 
Ordonez de Montalvo, the translator of the Amadis de Gaul, and called 
Las Sergas de Esplandidn, or the Adventures of Esplandian. The Sergas 
is often referred to as the fifth book of the Amadis. In this book, which 
was an extremely popular piece of literature at the time of the conquest 
of Mexico, there is an island called California. By "California" there 
was implied insularity coupled with riches. 

"Know," says the Sergas, "that on the right hand of the Indies 
there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial 
Paradise ; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, 
for they live in the manner of Amazons. They were of strong and hardy 
bodies, of ardent courage, and great force. Their island was the strongest 
in the world, with its steep cliffs and rock shores. Their arms were of 
gold, and so was the harness of the wild beasts they tamed to ride, for 
in the whole island there was no metal but gold." 

1511 

Sixteenth-century cartography, at this date and later, particularly 
in the maps, "Lenox Globe" and "Sylvanus Map," persists in the idea 
of North America as a group of islands. A continuous search for a 
passage through this archipelago, leading to Asia, was the goal of sub- 
sequent voyages of discovery. It was the result of this universal notion 
that California was discovered. 

1513 

Vasco Nunez de Balboa, a Spanish navigator, crosses the Isthmus 
of Panama and discovers the Pacific Ocean. 



10 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1515 

Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish adventurer, who had been associated 
with Vasco Nunez de Balboa, when the latter discovered the Pacific Ocean 
in 1613, visits the Pacific South American coasts and becomes the dis- 
coverer of Peru. 

1519 

Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda is the first European to view the broadly 
flowing waters of the Mississippi River, but he is not generally credited 
as its discoverer, that honor being universally given to Hernando de Soto. 

1519 

Hernando Cortes, at the head of a Spanish expedition, undertakes 
an exploration and conquest of Mexico. 

1520 

Fernao de Magalhaes, whom we know as Ferdinand Magellan, a 
Portuguese navigator, discovers and makes passage of the straits after- 
wards bearing his name, and is the first European navigator to cross the 
Pacific Ocean. 

1521 

Spanish conquest of Mexico by Hernando Cortes is completed and 
the country is called "Nueva Espaiia," or "New Spain." 

1521 

Fernao de Magalhaes discovers the islands subsequently known as 
the Philippine Islands. Other voyages across the Pacific Ocean, with 
these islands as an objective point, had a direct bearing then, and an 
influence later, upon the history of California. 

1522 

The circumnavigation of the globe by the sailing vessels, which had 
been commenced by Fernao de Magalhaes, who was killed in 1621 during 
the voyage, is accomplished by a return to the point of previous em- 
barkation. 

1522 

Previous to Magellan's voyage the belief had existed that North 
America was an archipelago and was traversed by an inter-oceanic strait. 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 11 

later called "Anian," connecting the Gulf of St. Lawrence with the North 
Pacific Ocean. After the discovery of the Straits of Magellan and the 
voyage across the Pacific, this belief becomes popularly current and 
is accepted. 

1524 

Gonzalo de Sandoval carries the following strange story to Mexico 
from Colima: "California is represented as an island, rich in pearls 
and gold. It was said to lie at a distance of ten days' journey from the 
province of Ciguatan, and to be inhabited by women only." This account 
is transmitted to the Emperor Charles V. of Spain by Hernando Cortes, 
in the Carta Quarta de Relacion. 

1524 

Francisco Pizarro, who had visited Peru in 1615, sets sail from 
Panama, with his partner, Diego de Almagro, an adventurer like him- 
self, and joining to himself Hernando de Luque, a priest possessed of 
some money, ventures upon an expedition and conquest of this rich em- 
pire of Peru; and sailing southward from Panama, explores the southern 
Pacific Coast. The expedition proves an inspiration for a later conquest. 

1526 

Francisco Pizarro, financed by Gaspar de Espinosa, mayor of Pan- 
ama, undertakes a second expedition to Peru. Again he sails from the 
city of Panama, southward along the Peruvian coast. 

1531-1535 

Francisco Pizarro enters upon and completes the conquest of Peru. 
He defeats the Inca Atahualpa, and taking over the cities of Peru, with 
their immense treasures, governs the same under the title of Adelantado. 
He sends his brother, Hernando Pizarro, to Spain to obtain honors for 
the conquistadores. Returning in 1586, with various honors, Francisco 
Pizarro receives at the hands of Charles V. of Spain, the title of Marquis 
and a grant of the Chilean region for Almagro. It is noteworthy that 
during this conquest and occupation, he was accompanied by Hernando 
de Soto, who later explores the Mississippi River. 

1534 

Fortuii Ximenez, a Spanish adventurer, and mutinous pilot of Cortes' 
Expedition, discovers the eastern coast of Baja California, or Lower 



12 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

California, at what was later known as Santa Cruz Bay. Here Xim6nez 
is killed. 

1535 

Hernando Cortes visits Baja California to found a colony, lands 
where Ximenez had been killed, and gives to what he thought was an 
island, the name of "Santa Cruz" (La Paz). Whether this Santa Cruz 
of Cortes was an island at the mouth of the bay, or the mainland of 
Baja California which he thought was a large island, is not known, 
although it would seem that it might be the latter, as he says : "I arrived 
at the land of Santa Cruz, I was in it and had complete knowledge of it," 
and he would not speak of so small a body as one of the islands at the 
mouth of the bay as "land." 

1536 

Hernando Cortes crosses the Gulf of California and explores the 
lower portion of Baja California and also the Pacific Coast of Mexico. 

1536 

Alvar Nufiez Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish adventurer in North Amer- 
ica, and belonging to the expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez to Florida 
in 1528, crosses the Mississippi River. He is the second European to 
do this. 

1536 

Alvar Nxinez Cabeza de Vaca appears in the City of Mexico with 
his wondrous tales of having traveled on foot three thousand miles from 
Florida, of his wanderings for many years in unknown lands, now Texas 
and Arkansas, and of the fabulous wealth, gold and precious stones, of 
the "Seven Cities of Cibola." These wonderful tales inspired Cortes 
and his military associates to the succeeding voyages and expeditions 
of discovery and exploration which resulted in the discovery of California. 

1537 

The colony founded by Hernando Cortes in Lower California at 
Santa Cruz is a failure and abandoned. 

1539 

Fray Marcos de Niza, an Italian Missionary and explorer, under 
the direction of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Governor of "New 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 13 

Galicia," undertakes the exploration of northwestern Mexico and be- 
comes the "Discoverer of Arizona." He is inspired by the wonderful 
tales told by Cabeza de Vaca of the rich cities of Cibola of which the 
latter had heard on his overland journey of three years previous. 

Fray Marcos de Niza makes his wonderful journey into the un- 
known wilds alone except for the negro Estevanico, who had been with 
Cabeza de V'aca^ and four Indians. He returns with even more won- 
derful tales than had Cabeza de Vaca, as he had seen the cities from 
a hill, being afraid to go nearer owing to an uprising in which Estevanico 
was killed. The cities which were the lure of so many adventurous souls 
were merely the terraced houses of the Pueblo Indians. 

1539 

Francisco de Ulloa, a Spanish soldier and explorer, and a lieutenant 
of Cortes, having been with the latter in 1535, makes a Pacific coastwise 
voyage and explores the Gulf of California, proving that California is 
not an island. The first record of the name as applied to the peninsula 
appears in the map in Preciado's diary of Ulloa's expedition. 

1539 

Francisco Preciado, a Franciscan padre and diarist of the expedition 
of Francisco de Ulloa, employs the name "California" many times in his 
account of Ulloa's expedition, which is the first time the name appears in 
print as applying to an actual body of land. He discriminates between 
"Isle of California" and "Land of Santa Cruz." 

1539 

Hernando de Soto, Spanish gentleman, explorer and adventurer, 
effects a landing at Tampa Bay and leads a remarkable expedition for 
the next three years through Florida, Georgia, perhaps through Carolina, 
Tennessee and Alabama, descending the Alabama River to Mobile Bay. 
He turns northward, and crosses Mississippi and the river of the same 
name, and explores almost to the Missouri River. 

1540 

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, governor of New Galicia, incited 
by the wonderful tales of the "Seven Cities of Cibola" and of Quivira, 
as told by Fray Marcos on his return, sets out on an expedition accom- 
panied by 800 Spaniards and 800 Indians. During the next two years 



14 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

the party explores from the Grand Canon of the Colorado across Arizona 
and New Mexico, as far north as central Kansas and east to central 
Texas. He explores the country as far north as the Moqui villages of 
Tusayan, only to find that the wonderful cities of Cibola were the 
communal houses of the Pueblo Indians. 

1540 

Hernando de Alarcon, a Spanish-American navigator, employed by 
Don Antonio de Mendoza, viceroy of New Spain, is the first European 
to touch California soil, and, entering the Gulf of California, ascends 
the Colorado River for more than one hundred miles on an expedition 
of discovery, co-operating with Coronado. 

1540 

Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, one of the captains under Coronado, 
discovers the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. 

1541 

Domingo del Castillo, one of Alarcon's pilots, re-explores the Gulf 
of California and charts its shores; he publishes a notable map of the 
Gulf of California and the Colorado River which is recognized as both 
accurate and authoritative. He describes California as a peninsula. 

1541 

Francisco Pizarro is killed by a band of conspirators under Juan 
de Rada in vengeance for the previous execution of Almagro, his former 
associate. 

1542 

Hernando de Soto, re-discovers the Mississippi River, which has a 
direct bearing upon the subsequent Louisiana Purchase and the opening 
of the Great West to the Pacific Coast. 

1542 

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator, is employed by 
Pedro de Alvarado, governor of Guatemala, for a voyage under the flag 
of Spain, to the north. Alvarado dies before the voyage is commenced, 
but the employment of Cabrillo is confirmed by Mcndoza. He sails from 
Natividad to the north and discovers the Bay of San Diego, thus becoming 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY IS 

the true discoverer of California, although Alarcon in his voyage up the 
Colorado saw and probably landed on California soil. Cabrillo visits 
many of the islands along the coast, among them Santa Cruz, Catalina and 
San Clemente, and sails as far north as Point Concei^tion. His import.int 
discoveries are cut short by his death. 

1542 

Alonzo dc Santa Cruz, the cosmographer royal of Charles V. of Spain, 
publishes his map showing California as in the lower part insular and 
in the upper part peninsular. 

1542 

Don Antonio de Mendoza, viceroy of New Spain, sends six ships 
under Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, across the Pacific to "note the products 
of the Western Islands," and Villalobos reaching them, re-christens them 
Las Philippinas, the Philippine Islands, in honor of Philip II of Spain. 

1542 

A party of Spaniards visits the present site of Santa Fe, New \ 
Mexico, and finds there an abandoned Indian pueblo. 

1543 

January 8rd, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the true discoverer of Cali- 
fornia and the first explorer of its coast, dies on the Island of San 
Miguel and is probably buried there. 

1543 

Bartolome Ferrelo, a native of the Levant, and Cabrillo's chief pilot, 
takes command of the expedition and voyages as far north as the forty- 
second degree of latitude, to within four degrees of the mouth of the 
Columbia River. He reports the new discoveries to Cortes. 

1564 

Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi is commissioned by Luis de Velasco, Vice- 
roy of New Spain, to subdue the Philippine Islands, which he accomplishes 
in the next seven years, founding the city of Manilla. 

1568 

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who had served as a common soldier with 
Hernando Cortes and had been in one hundred and nineteen battles, and 



16 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

who had been present at the siege and capture of the City of Mexico in 
1621, commences his notable history of the Spanish conquest. 

1579 

Sir Francis Drake, an English admiral and navigator, acquires 
immense treasures as a freebooter in the Spanish harbors on the Pacific 
Coast. Sails northward on a voyage of exploration and anchors in the 
bay receiving his name, most likely the bay in the embrasure of Point 
Reyes, also identical with Cermeiio's Bay. 

This expedition of Drake was a rude awakening to the calm posses- 
sion of the Spaniards. Not only because of the danger to the Philippine 
galleons, but also because of the fate of the country over which Drake 
had raised the flag of England. 

1579 

Sir Francis Drake orders religious services to be performed with the 
Indians as witnesses in order to convey to their minds the idea of the 
everlasting God who created heaven and earth and reigned above. This 
is carried out on the shores of Drake's Bay, by the celebration of the 
English forms of service and is the first Christian rite ever held on the 
soil of California; being representative of the established church of Eng- 
land as under Queen Elizabeth, it was undeniably a Protestant service. 
The following is the quotation from the World Encompassed: "Our 

generall, with his companie — fell to prayer . In the time of which 

prayer, singing psalmes and reading of certaine Chapters in the Bible, 
they sate very attentively ." 

1580 

Sir Francis Drake returns to England, his ships laden with spoils, 
and, having gained enduring glory by circumnavigating the globe (it 
being the second time this had been achieved), he enters Plymouth Harbor, 
England, having started therefrom in 1677 upon Magellan's earlier course, 
though not then contemplating a periplus of the world. 

1582 

Bernal Diaz del Castillo has lodged in manuscript form, as the result 
of continuous application and prodigious labor for many years, his remark- 
able history entitled Hiatoria Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva 
Espana. This covers the explorations and conquests of the Spaniards 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 17 

and contains many references to California, and the author states that it 
was Corles who first gave it the name. However, this history remains in 
manuscript form for fifty years after this date. 

1582 

Francisco Lopez Gomara, secretary and chaplain of Cortes, pub- 
lishes his Historia general de las Indias, (La conquista de Mexico). 

1584 

Francisco de Gali, under command of Viceroy Pedro de Moya de 
Contreras, starting from a port of New Spain, crosses the Pacific Ocean 
and returns again to within two hundred leagues of the northern coast 
of Alta California, and then traverses the coast southward, skirting the 
islands on the California shores. On this voyage, he discovers the Japan 
Current, thus making an easy return trip from the Philippine Islands to 
Mexico. This had a very important bearing on the history of California. 
As, owing to the length and dangers of the trip back from the Philippines, 
it was necessary to have a port of repairs for the galleons, before reach- 
ing Mexico ; and as the return by the Japan Current brought the galleons 
along the shores of California, California thus became a commercial 
necessity to Mexico. It was this that caused the King of Spain to desire 
California, and not her own worth, as that was never known nor appre- 
ciated by Mexico. 

1586 

Thomas Cavendish, second English circumnavigator of the globe, 
and, like Drake, a freebooter, sails through the Straits of Magellan, preys 
upon Spanish vessels, and exploring the Pacific Coast of Mexico to Lower 
California, returns to England. He thus performs the third periplus 
of the globe. 

1587 

Pedro de Unamunu, a navigator of Macao, is sent bj' Viceroy Con- 
treras on an exploring expedition to discover islands to be used as refit- 
ting stations for the Philippine galleons. Unamunu does not find these 
islands nor, indeed, any others, but discovers a bay which he called Puerto 
de San Lucas, probably the Bay of Monterey, thus antedating the dis- 
covery of Viscaino by fifteen years. 



18 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1588-1594 

"The Silver Map of the World" appears, which is assumed to be 
"A contemporary medallion commemorative of Drake's voyage (1577-80)," 
and on this map is engraved "Californoa." 

1591 

Thomas Cavendish makes another voyage to the Pacific Coast, repeat- 
ing his previous adventures and explorations. 

1592 

Juan de Fuca, a Greek navigator whose real name was Apostolos 
Valerianos, in the employ of the Viceroy of Mexico, explores the Pacific 
Coast and sails into the Bay which is now known as the Gulf of Georgia, 
and having for twenty days steered through its intricate windings and 
numerous islands, returns with a belief that the entrance to the long de- 
sired passage into the Atlantic had been found; that is, "Anian." The 
Straits into Puget Sound still bear his name. Juan de Fuca really claims 
to have made the voyage completely through the Straits of Anian from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific. This has a very great influence on the geog- 
raphy of the time. 

1595 

Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeno, sailing from the Philippines on a 
voyage of discovery of islands to be used as ports of refuge for the Phil- 
ippine galleons, is driven into a bay behind Point Reyes, latitude 38°, 
along the coast of California. This bay is probably the Francis Drake 
Bay. The ship is wrecked, but some seventy escape in a viroco and later, 
sailing down the coast, reach a "very large bay," latitude 37°, which is 
very likely Monterey. Thus is added another possible "discoverer" of 
Monterey before Vizcaino. 

1597 

Gonzalo de Francia, boatswain of a ship under Sebastian Vizcaino, 
visits Santa Cruz Bay and, later (1629) writes to the King: "We came 
upon un puerto grande which was called El Puerto de la Paz, — and an 
island at the mouth of it which was called Island of Women, who were 
without men, none passing over to them except in summer on rafts made 
of reeds." 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 19 

1598 

Juan de Onate, a Spanish explorer, under commission of Viceroy, 
Don Luis de Velasco, to colonize the district north of the river Rio 
Grande, which was confirmed by the Viceroy, Gaspar de Zuniga y Acebo de 
Monterey, sets out on an expedition with a large force of soldiers, Indians, 
wagons and cattle, and crossing the Rio Grande, founds San Gabriel, 
the first capital of New Mexico. 

1598 

Juan de Onate extends his explorations into the territory later com- 
prising Arizona and traverses the edges of the desert and fertile mountain 
valleys which had been discovered sixty years before. 

1599 

In revenge for the murder of a number of Spaniards, Onate decides 
to attack the city of Acoma, the great stronghold of the Pueblo Indians, 
standing on its almost impregnable cliffs. But the great clififs are not 
proof against cunning, and the Spaniards divide themselves in two parties, 
one of which climbs the walls during the night and the other, making the 
front attack the following morning, takes the city. In all history there is 
no more desperate battle, nor none fought at so dizzy a height. Of the 
3000 Indians but six hundred were left and they were forced to leave 
their homes and live in the valley. 

1600 

An excellent map is published by Tattonus in this year, showing 
Lower California a peninsula. The early cartographers persisted in the 
insular idea. From 1541, (the map of Castillo), to 1622 the peninsular 
idea gained ground, but again from 1622 to 1746 a reaction toward the 
idea of California being an island prevailed, even against the distinct proof 
to the contrary in Kino's entradas. 

1601 

As a part of his conquest of New Mexico and of his further explora- 
tions Onate makes an expedition into the coimtry of the Quivira. 

1601 

Antonio de Herrera, Historian General of New Spain, publishes his 
account of the Cortes expedition, and states that between 1685 and 1687, 
the Spanish leader called the waste about him "California." 



20 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1602 

Sebastian Vizcaino, a Spanish explorer, having become Chief Pilot 
of New Spain and commissioned Captain-General for a second California 
voyage by the Conde de Monterey, explores the west coast of Alta Cali- 
fornia north to Cape Blanco de San Sebastian, latitude 42°. Vizcaino 
enters the great Bay, which had been previously visited by Ferrelo, 
Unamunu and Cermeiio and names it the Bay of Monterey in honor of 
the Viceroy of Mexico. 

In this expedition of Vizcaino, a vessel, under the command of Juan 
Martin de Aguilar, becomes separated from the others in a storm and 
Aguilar sails north on his own responsibility as far as Cape Blanco in 
Oregon, latitude 43° or further. He sails up a river which receives the 
name Aguilar upon current maps. To him is given the credit for the 
discovery of the mouth of the Columbia River, although it is doubtful if 
he went that far. 

1603 

Sebastian Vizcaino publishes maps showing the Port of Monterey 
and the San Francisco Bay of Cermefio {Puerto de los Reyes). This 
latter bay is also identical with Sir Francis Drake's Bay, 

1604 

A second exploration of the territory now included in the State of 
Arizona is made by Juan de Ofiate. On this exploration Oiiate followed 
the Colorado River to its mouth, being the first European to accomplish 
this. 

1605 

The settlement or pueblo of San Gabriel in New Mexico after con- 
' tinning for seven years is abandoned. While it thereby loses its antiquity 
( as a permanently inhabited town, yet in later years the town of Chamita 
is founded on the same site. 

1605 

The town of Santa Fe, now in the State of New Mexico, is estab- 

1 lished by Juan de Oiiate on the site of at least one prehistoric pueblo and 

^ is given the name of "La Cuidad Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco." 

Oiiate enslaves the Indians of the neighborhood and proceeds to open up 

extensive gold and silver mines. Santa Fe is the second oldest white 

settlement in the United States, that of Saint Augustine, Florida, alone 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 21 

exceeding it in point of age, and antedates the settlement at Jamestown 
by two years and the landing of the Mayflower in Boston Harbor by 
fifteen years. 

1606 

Enrico Martinez, a Mexican engineer and royal cosmographer of 
Spain, constructs a noted canal in the Valley of Mexico, and publishes 
the observations and surveys, made by Vizcaino in 1602, of Alta Cali- 
fornia, in thirty-two charts, which are still preserved in the archives of 
the Council of the Indies. 

1609 

King James I. of England makes his second grant of land on the 
North American Continent, in Virginia, known as the Jamestown Charter, 
being dated May 23, 1609, the seventh year of King James' reign; the 
inland limit of this grant or charter was from sea to sea, that is from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, the southern boundary being thirty-four degrees, 
North latitude, and the northern boundary thirty-eight degrees, North 
latitude; and it is interesting to note that his northerly limit as finally 
settled passes into the Pacific Ocean, just north of San Francisco and that 
this southerly limit as finally settled passes about three miles south of 
the city of Redlands, through the city of Riverside, and into the Pacific 
Ocean at about Santa Monica, California, so that all of the Pacific Coast 
line from Santa Monica to the Golden Gate was the westerly limit of this 
Jamestown Grant, though never legally established or right of control 
exercised. 

1611 

Sebastian Vizcaino explores the region about Japan in hopes of find- 
ing the islands Ricas de Oro y Plata, islands of gold and silver. (The 
Armenian Islands of Villalobos and Unamunu). The existence of these 
mythical islands is probably due to a folk-talk of Japan. 

1622 

Appears a map of "The World" by Kaspar Van Baerle, and on this 
California is drawn as an island of great size and of rectangular form. 
Other maps from this year (and in succeeding years to 1746) replace the 
peninsula of California by an island. 

1632 

The manuscript history entitled "Historia Verdadera de la Conquista 
de la Nueva Espana which had been written during the labors and studies 



22 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

of a period of many years by Bernal Diaz del Castillo and which had been 
hidden among the archives of a library in Spain for a period of fifty years 
and long after his death, is at this date brought to light and published to 
the world. It immediately secures an eminent position as historical evi- 
dence and authority and brings more positive attention to the discoveries 
and explorations of Hernando Cortes and the country then called "Cali- 
fornia." This history of the conquest of New Spain refers to Cortes as 
having discovered "an island" and that on that account Cortes was heartily 
cursed by his followers — a starving band. 

1632 

Francisco de Ortega names one of the islands in the lower gulf of 
California Espiritu Santo. It was probably either this island or Cer- 
ralvo to which the name California was first given. 

(Note — ^With subsequent historians, it is a matter of speculation as 
to what land, whether Lower California itself, or some islands off the 
coast, was first spoken of as "California." The quotation exactly from 
Richman is: "It" — the land to which the name California was first given 
— "may have been Cerralvo (the Santiago of Cortes), or Espiritu Santo, 
(so named by Ortega in 1632), both at the mouth of the Bay of Santa 
Cruz.") 

1630, 1646-1647 

Robert Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, an English nobleman 
and historiographer, publishes his three- volume work, Arcano Del Mare, 
and describes in II Mare d' America Occidentale, the trips of the galleons 
from the Philippines making the northwest coast of America. He defines 
the "Vermillion Sea" as beginning "at the Cape Santa Clara of Cali- 
fornia," etc., and as so many others, calls California an island. 

1647 

Father Joannis Bisselius, a Jesuit, contributes to the geographical 
literature of the age his Argonauticon Americanorum and proposes to 
name all the regions of the eastern and northern part of North America 
with the western kingdoms of Quivira and Tolmum, Estotilandia, and then 
turning to the south, on the west coast, he begins with California. He 
writes: "The kingdoms and regions better known to our navigation are 
these: those which lie on the south sea, Zurium, in an oblique direction 
from the west; in these after Quivira and the lands of the Tolmi, in the 
same extent of coast, the regions of California are stretched out on the 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 23 

sea toward the east (orientem versus). The back of this land is shut in 
by mountains from which flows into the ocean the river Farrellones. The 
sides are surrounded by water in the manner of arms. On the right indeed, 
which looks toward the south, the South Sea; on the left however, toward 
the north, it is bordered by a certain gulf running transversely up beyond 
the middle of the length of California. Some call this the Vermillion Sea." 

1652 

George Horn, in his notable work, on the origin of the people of 
America, traces the origin and migration of peoples by similarity of 
words; and writing of Corea thus curtly refers to the derivation of the 
name California from the name of the Coreans: "Hi Coreani primo in 
Californiam venerunt; quae nomen suum a Caoli habet." 

1653 

Appears the notable work entitled Sir Francis Drake Revived, con- 
taining an account of his four several voyages and his dangerous adven- 
tures for gold and silver. It included the World Encompassed. 

1669 

Peter Heylyn publishes his famous Cosmographie in four books in 
which he describes California as an island. 

1682 

Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, a young Frenchman of 
Rouen, France, makes his famous exploring tour in the middle west, floats 
down the Mississippi River to its mouth, takes possession of its vast basin 
in the name of France, and calls it "Louisiana," in honor of the king. 
This event bears direct relationship to subsequent Pacific Coast history. 

1686 

Captain Charles Swan, for the English, makes a voyage and enters 
California waters, carrying as a pilot and historiographer, William Dam- 
pier, a navigator. Dampier eventually makes four circumnavigations of 
the globe and publishes his adventures in a number of thrilling volumes. 

1697 

Beginning of the Jesuit Mission System in Baja or Lower California, 
under Fathers Eusebio Francisco Kino, missionary and royal cosmogra- 



24 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

pher, and Juan Maria de Salvatierra, assistente at Los Chimpas, as 
visitador. First mission^ Loreto de Concho, founded at Loreto, Lower 
California, October 25th. In the succeeding seventy-two years, eighteen 
missions are there located, all but one by the Jesuit order, and the famous 
"Pious Fund of California" is established. 

The Pious Fund had its origin in voluntary contributions in Mexico 
for the maintenance of Jesuit missions in California. The members of 
this company administered the fund until their expulsion from Spanish 
territory in 1768, when the government assumed charge until 1840 when 
it was turned over to the newly created Bishop of California, who admin- 
istered it until 1842, when the government again assumed control. At 
this time the government sold all the properties belonging to the fund, 
agreeing to pay to the missions of California six per cent per annum on 
the total selling price. This pledge has been the cause of a number of 
international difficulties between the United States and Mexico since 
California has been a part of the United States, but the question was 
finally settled in 1902 at The Hague, and Mexico pays to the bishops and 
archbishops of California $43,000 annually. 

1697 

William Dampier publishes A New Voyage Round the World, 
describing the lands visited on his voyages and the inhabitants, their 
customs, religions, etc., and makes reference to California which he also 
depicts as an island. 

1708-1711 

In these years is made the voyage to the South Sea and around the 
world by the ships Duke and Duchess of Bristol, commanded by Woods 
Rogers. Edward Cooke was second captain on board the "Duchess" and 
in 1712 publishes a journal of all the memorable transactions experienced 
during the said voyage. William Dampier, who really projected the 
expedition, went as pilot of the Duke. 

1709 

Woods Rogers in his visits to the Pacific waters rescues Alexander 
Selkirk, the original of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, from the Island 
of Juan Fernandez, three hundred miles off the coast of Chile. Selkirk 
is described as "A man in goatskins, who looked wilder than the first 
owners of them." 




Civilization Personified in Soldier and Church 



urchman 



August i, 1769, representatives of the Spanish military reginu- 
and of its established church appear at the Indian village of 
Yang-na (afterwards Los Angeles). The natives, at first alarmed 
and suspicious, at last yield to the kindly approaches of the visitors 
and respond to their friendly advances. Extending a crude, though 
certain hospitality, many are finally persuaded to become humble 
followers of the new Faith, with its civilizing influences. 



Vidt piigf 28 




An Indian village is tne Foundation Stone 

Food and shelter, so necessary to life and comfort, the love of 
association and the requisite means of defense rest in communal 
and united establishments. It was natural and peculiarly auspic- 
ious that where the Indians had sacrificed and dwelt should be laid 
the foundations of a great city. September 4, 1781, Governor 
Felipe de Xeve, with his train of soldiers and cavaliers and ac- 
companied by zealous padres and faithful priests, founds the 
"City of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels." The religious rites, 
the military splendor and the patriotic consecration, all presage the 
future of a glorious and noble municipality. 



Vide page 31 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 25 

1719 

Captain George Shelvocke makes a voyage to the Pacific Coast. It 
is very interesting that the sailor, Hatley, of this expedition was the 
Ancient Mariner who shot the albatross of Coleridge's famous poem. 

1728 

Vitus Behring, a Danish navigator, employed by Peter the Great of 
Russia, sails through the straits since bearing his name. By this voyage 
the question whether or not Asia and North America were one continent 
was indisputably settled. 

1728 

William Betagh publishes an account of a voyage round the world 
and of a remarkable enterprise begun in the year 1719, chiefly to cruise 
piratically on the Spaniards in the Great South Ocean. 

1739 

John Georgius Gemeling publishes a rare tract which appears to have 
been prepared as a thesis for a university or college degree, entitled 
Disputatio geographica de vero Californiae situ et conditione. This is 
a little known but important publication. 

1741 

The Russian government orders a second voyage to discover and 
explore the islands west of Asia. North America is first sighted by 
Alexei Chirikof, the commander of one of the two boats under Behring, 
and which had become separated from its companion in a storm, at lati- 
tude 65°. He sails as far south as Vancouver's Island. He returns to 
Siberia without again seeing Behring. Behring thirty-six hours later 
sights Mt. St. Elias and takes on water on Kyak Island, latitude 59° 40' 
and returns to Siberia without any further explorations. 

1740-1744 

George Anson, Esq., later Lord Anson, as commander in chief of a 
squadron of his Majesty's ships, is sent upon an expedition to the South 
Sea and makes a voyage round the world. The experiences of this expe- 
dition were afterwards published from his papers and materials by Richard 
Walter, M.A., who had been Chaplain of his Majesty's ship, the Centurion, 



26 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

on that expedition. It made the most popular book of maritime adven- 
ture of the eighteenth century. 

1745 

Russian sailors, coming from the north, descend upon and take posses- 
sion of the Aleutian Islands. 

1747-1756 

As a result of the commercial war started in London over the Indian 
trade and fur traffic, Arthur Dobbs had fitted out two vessels for this 
purpose and if possible to open the route to the South Seas; one of these 
was named California and under command of Captain Francis Smith 
the voyage is undertaken, of which a full account later appears. This 
is the first vessel to bear the name California. 

1757 

Miguel Venegas, a Mexican j^riest, publishes in Spain his history 
of California, Noticia de la California. This work has been translated 
into English, Dutch, French and German, and has become the basis of 
all later histories. In it Venegas says he thinks the word California 
originated from two Latin words calida and fornax, meaning hot furnace, 
though he doubts the Spanish adventurers "had so much learning," He 
also suggests that the origin may be an Indian word, possibly hali forno, 
meaning high hill. 

As a supplementary note to the foregoing, the following authorities 
with reference to the etymology of the name California should be included 
although the year dates do not come within the limitations of this Chro- 
nology : 

(Professor Jules Marcou in 1876 publishes in the Annual Report of 
the Chief of Engineers of the U. S. Army, his Notes upon the first dis- 
coveries of California and the origin of its name. He ascribes to Cortes 
the division of the INIexican region into tierra frio, tierra templada, tierra 
caliente, and tierra California, or cold regions, temperate regions, hot 
regions, and regions like a furnace, from the two Latin words, calida and 
fornax, hot furnace. 

In 1893, an article appears in the San Francisco Chronicle by M. L., 
who states that the words cal y forno mean lime kiln in the language of 
the Indians of Lower California, and that the author heard one of them 
use it as such, and he believes that Ulloa, remembering the name Cali- 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 27 

fornia as used in the Sergas de Esplandidn, gives the name to the penin- 
sula. 

Professor George Davidson^ President of the Geographical Society 
of the Pacific, in 1910 publishes his monograph on the origin and meaning 
of the name California. He accepts the hypothesis of the Sergas de 
Esplandidn, and gives as the etymological derivation of the word Cali- 
fornia two Greek words, meaning beauty and bird.) 

1767 

By decree of the Spanish Cortes, the Jesuits are expelled from 
Mexico and all Spanish territory; and their missions offered to the Fran- 
ciscans. 

1769 

The Abbe, Jean Chappe D'Auteroche, voyages to California for an 
observation of the passage of the planet Venus over the face of the sun, 
June 3, 1769. This celestial phenomenon was visible only upon the coast 
of California. Spain knew of the expedition and fearing the possible 
results hastened to dispatch Don Caspar de Portola upon his mission of 
occupation and colonization of Upper California. The Abbe Chappe 
died while in Lower California and was there interred. Monsieur de 
Cassini publishes an account of this scientific investigation in 1772. 

1769 

Conquest of Upper California is ordered and committed to Don Jose 
Galvez, the Visitador General of Mexico, and to San Francisco de Croix, 
Viceroy. Captain Gaspar de Portola is made civil and military com- 
mander of the country, and Fray Junipero Serra, Father President of the 
missions. 

1769 

Beginning of the civil and religious reduction of Alta California, by 
an expedition under Governor Don Gaspar de Portola and Father Junipero 
Serra. 

1769 

July 14th, starting from San Diego of an expedition of sixty-seven 
soldiers, friars and artisans northward to find the Bay of Monterey, the 
real objective of the whole expedition, all under command of Portola. 
In the company was Sergeant Jose Francisco de Ortega, who first dis- 
covers San Francisco Bay, while out hunting. 



28 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1769 

Founding of the first (1) Franciscan Mission at San Diego, July 
16th; the full name of the mission was San Diego de Alcala. There has 
been much discussion as to the origin of the name. The Bay was named 
by Vizcaino simply San Diego, after his flagship, but the mission was 
named by Serra after the saint whose day it was and not Santiago (San 
Diego) de Compostella, patron saint of Spain, as has often been said. 

1769 

Prior to the coming of the Spanish cavaliers and Franciscan friars, 
straggling or roving tribes of Indians occupied Alta California, so called, 
but they were not of the strict Indian type, being rather more Asiatic 
in physiognomy. They maintained scattered villages and camping 
grounds at most convenient and defensible locations. Where the pueblo 
of Los Angeles was afterwards located, there was for some years prior 
such an Indian village, whose population probably consisted of 300 human 
beings "barely above the animal plane." By them the village was given 
the name of Yang-na, probably of Chinese etymology, which was the first 
appellation given to the spot, afterwards occupied by the city of Los 
Angeles. To this Indian village or community, so called Yang-na, (after- 
wards Los Angeles) comes the band of Spanish adventurers and religious 
enthusiasts, August 2nd. 

1769 

San Francisco Bay is given this name for the first time, although 
still with the idea that it was the St. Francis Bay of Cermeno. A late 
authority, Richman, says: "The truth is that until 1774<, the year of the 
Anza expedition, it had not so much as been settled just where the port of 
San Francisco was, where the presidio and mission were to be founded. 
What, however, was presumed was that the estuary of 1769 and 1770 
(the present San Francisco Bay) was appurtenant to the old San Fran- 
cisco Bay of Cermeno. On a map of 1772 the present San Francisco 
Bay is called Estero de San Francisco." (Estuary of San Francisco, or 
arm of the old bay of Cermeno.) 

1770 

Eusebio Francisco Kino, a missionary of Sonora, makes a final 
entrada to the Colorado, and following it as far north as 36 degrees, proves 
practically that California is not a peninsula. 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 29 

1770 

Fray Francisco Garces, resident minister of San Xavier del Bac, 
Arizona, makes the third of his entradas, and in this one, the most im- 
portant, travels down the Rio Gila and the Colorado, nearly, if not quite 
to the mouth of the latter. 

1770 

On May 24, in a second overland expedition to find Monterey, Por- 
tola discovers and recognizes the bay. On the 31st, Captain Juan Perez 
anchors his ship San Antonio in Monterey Bay and on July 9th the (2) 
mission and presidio of San Carlos Borromeo de Monterey is founded, 
the second mission and the first presidio, or fort. It becomes the first 
capital of California. 

Note — Monterey was not a pueblo in the beginning, but a presidio. 
There were three forms of local government set up in California, the 
presidios, or military centers, the missions, which were never very far from 
the presidios, for the sake of protection, and the pueblos, or municipal 
settlements with regular colonists. These pueblos had a regular govern- 
ing body and alcalde. The colonists all had town-lots and a suerte, or field 
for irrigation, beside the use of the public grazing pastures. These prop- 
erties were not to be sold, nor could they be mortgaged. The settlers 
were subsidized by freedom from taxation for a number of years, and in 
Los Angeles each family received ten pesos a month. The only pueblos 
founded directly in early California were Los Angeles and San Jose, that 
is, from the very first, they had a municipal government. Monterey was 
a presidio, or fort; it did not have a municipal government until 1826. 

1770(?) 

This is the probable date of the publication of Miguel Costanso's 
Diario historico de los viages de mar y tierra hecos at norte de la Cali- 
fornia, although it is not positive, as the edition was suppressed in Mexico 
for a number of years because it was thought the work gave too much 
information concerning California into the hands of the English. The 
work is of the utmost value, being the first book that relates exclusively 
to California, and contains a most complete account of the Portola expedi- 
tion to find the bay of Monterey. 

1771 

Mission of (2) San Carlos at Monterey is removed to the valley of 
Carmelo. 



30 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1771 

Founding of (3) Mission of San Antonio de Padua, at Los Robles, 
July 14th. 

1771 

Founding of (4) Mission of San Gabriel, "The Queen of the Mis- 
sions," in a valley of the Sierra Madre Mountains. 

1772 

Founding of (6) the Mission of San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, Sep- 
tember 1st. 

1774 

Juan Bautista de Anza, commandante of the presidio of Tubac, in 
Arizona, marches, in company with Fray Garces, across the Colorado 
desert to San Gabriel and then north to Monterey, trying to open a prac- 
tical overland trail from the California missions to Mexico, through 
Arizona. 

1775 

Juan Manuel de Ayala, Lieutenant of the Royal Navy of Spain, and 
his ship San Carlos, are the first to enter the harbor. Saint Francis Bay, 
(Cermeiio's and identical also with Drake's Bay). Ayala selects point 
for fort and for mission, the Dolores mission. 

1776 

Anza makes a second journey from Tubac with colonists intended 
for the presidio of San Francisco. Reaches San Francisco in company of 
Pedro Font and Jose Moraga, and surveys the coast about the bay. Posi- 
tions for the presidio and missions are decided on. 

1776 

Fray Garces makes his last great overland journey. Accompanies 
Anza as far as Yuma, and then leaving the party crosses the Mojave 
desert and reaches San Gabriel. 

1776 

James Cook makes the last of his four voyages under the English 
flag. It is this fourth voyage that is of especial interest to California. 
He sails by the way of the Cape of Good Hope and discovers the Hawaiian 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 31 

Islands. Reaches California at tlie latitude of Cape Mendocino and skirt- 
ing the coast to the north discovers Nootka Sound, thus laying the foun- 
dation for the Nootka controversy at a later date, and sails through the 
Behring Straits as far north as Icy Cape. Cook dies on the voyage, but 
on the return while at Canton, a discovery of great historic and commer- 
cial value is made to the effect that the supposed valueless furs, which 
had been traded for knives and trinkets with the Indians of the Nootka 
Sound vicinity, brought fabulous prices in China. This laid the founda- 
tion for the great fur trade of the future, and opened up so many and 
such intricate commercial and diplomatic controversies that Cook's voyage 
has come to be reckoned as most important in its historic bearing. 

1776 

Founding of the (6) Mission and Presidio of San Francisco de Asis, 
by two Franciscan monks, Palou and Gambon. The presidio was founded 
September 17th, but the mission, a league or so away from the presidio, 
was not founded until October 4th, on a small creek called Dolores. Hence 
the mission is commonly known as Dolores Mission. Fathers Palou and 
Gambon assume charge of the mission. 

1776 

Founding of (7) the Mission of San Juan Capistrano, November 1st. 

1777 

Founding of (8) the Mission of Santa Clara, January 12th. 

1777 

The pueblo of San Jose de Guadalupe, the first purely civil settle- 
ment in California, is founded by Gov. Felipe de Neve on the Rio de 
Guadalupe. The colonists consisted of fourteen heads of families, 66 
persons. They were granted house lots and planting lots and free use of 
the public grazing fields, under charter of the pueblo system. The lands 
could not be sold nor mortgaged. The colonists were free from taxes for ^ 
number of years, and furnished a certain number of domestic animals and 
seeds. The government was under an alcalde or magistrate, and a coun- 
cil elected yearly. 

1781 

Founding on the Rio Porciuncula (Los Angeles River) of the pueblo 
of Los Angeles under direction of the governor, Felipe de Neve. The 



32 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

pueblo was called Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles, City 
of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels. At the beginning there were 
eleven heads of families, forty-six persons all told. Los Angeles was the 
second of the early pueblos. From 1835 Los Angeles vies with Monterey 
for the honor of being the capital of the province. 

1782 

Founding of (9) the Mission of San Buenaventura, March 31st. 

1784 

August 28th, Father Junipero Serra dies at the age of seventy-one 
years at his own Mission at San Carlos, in his loved valley of Carmelo. 
For fifty-four years he had been a Franciscan priest, thirty-five of which 
had been spent in missionary labors and fifteen of which had been spent in 
California, during which nine missions were established and over five thou- 
sand eight hundred Indian neophytes converted from heathenism to 
Christianity. 

1784 

Father Francisco Palou, friend and biographer of Serra, becomes 
Father President of the missions until 1786, when he retires to the promi- 
nent position of father guardian of the College of San Fernando in Mexico. 
Here he writes his Vida del Junipero Serra, and edits his Notices de la 
Nueva California. The first becomes the standard for the life of Serra, 
and the latter is the first book written in what is now California. 

1785 

Jean FranQois de Gallaup, Count de la Perouse, under commission 
from the French government to explore the North Pacific coast of North 
America for the purpose of finding the Straits of Anian (for this ghost 
was still unlaid), visits California. He leaves a very interesting journal 
of his visit, full of shrewd observations on the afifairs of the country, the 
mission system, treatment of the Indians, etc. 

1786 

Fray Fermin Francisco de Lasuen becomes Father President of the 
missions. 




P'"^ 


, W^^m 


V^iiMl^ 


'^^^^!^^ 


% 

•^ 


r,3*- 







The Sterner Influences c/^ Sturdy Living 

The beginnings of civilization are always simple and crude. The 
early California settlements were rough and unpretentious. The 
humbler and homelier virtues of the settlers were those founded 
in self-reliance and strong courage. The religious ceremonies and 
the influences of chant and prayer stood forth as a bulwark and 
relief against the harshness of the natural conditions in which 
they lived. It is significant that out of this was developed a strong 
high-minded type of citizenship. 



Vide page 36 




A J o u 



r n e y 



cross 



Continent 



While methods of communication are difficult and uncertain, 
and modes of travel arduous and dangerous, the desire for ad- 
venture, for treasure and betterment of conditions bring the 
hunter, trapper and scout across a continent to the new country. 

Captain Jedediah S. Smith and a little band arrive at the San 
Gabriel Mission in December, lS-26, being the first to come over- 
land, braving the dangers and terrors of mountain, desert and 
plain. This was the commencement of the "Overland" travel and 
the opening up of continental routes. 



Vide page 40 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 33 

1786 

Founding of (10) the Mission of Santa Barbara, by Father Fermin 
Francisco de Lasuen. This is the first mission founded by Father Lasuen 
and is dedicated December 4th. 

1787 

Captain Robert Gray, an American discoverer, from Rhode Island, 
is appointed to command the sloop Washingtm, which is equipped by 
merchants of Boston for trade with the Indians on the Pacific Coast, and 
makes the voyage successfully. 

1787 

Francisco Palou publishes his famous and extensive history relating 
to Upper California. This includes a symbological portrait of the Vener- 
able Padre, Fray Junipero Serra, typifj'ing his apostolic labors and re- 
counting the stories of the foundations of the California missions. As his 
closest friend and biographer. Padre Palou, says of Father Serra that 
"his laborious and exemplary life is nothing but a beautiful field decked 
with every class of flowers of excellent virtues." 

1787 

Founding of (H) the Mission of La Purfsima Concepcion, near the 
present town of Lompoc, December 8th. 

1788-1789 

John Meares, an Englishman, voyages to the northwest coast of 
North America for the purpose of fur trading. Complications arise be- 
tween him and the Spanish authorities, which assume large proportions, 
almost embroiling the two countries in war. Meares's voyage has im- 
portance out of proportion to its geographic value, for it was on his 
discoveries that England, later, based her claims for the Oregon territory, 

1790-1792 

Captain Robert Gray, returning from his Pacific Coast voyage in 
another sloop, named the "Columbia," makes the notworthy record of 
being the first to carry the United States flag around the earth. Upon a 
second voyage in this ship to the Pacific Coast, he discovers the Columbia 
River, which he names after his vessel. 



34 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1790-1795 

George Vancouver is commissioned by the King of England to ex- 
plore the northwest coast of America and makes a remarkable voyage of 
discovery to the north Pacific Ocean and round the world, in the Discovery, 
sloop of war, and armed tender, Chatham. He carefully examines and 
accurately surveys the northwestern coast, including the port San Fran- 
cisco. A published work of this voyage, in 1798, is superior to any of its 
kind and constitutes the chiefest source of authority of that period. 

1791 

Founding of (12) the Mission of the Holy Cross at Santa Cruz, 
September 25th. 

1791 

Founding of (13) the Mission of Maria Santisima de la Soledad, that 
is, "Our Lady of Solitude," commonly called Soledad, October 5th. 
Another authority gives "Nuestra Senora Dolorosisima de la Soledad," 

1796 

Francisco Palou, Spanish friar, who was the founder of the San 
Francisco mission in 1776 and the successor of Junipero Serra as presi- 
dent in 1783, passes out of the history of California. The exact date of 
his death is unknown. 

1796 

Arrival in Monterey of the Boston, the first American trading vessel 
to visit California. From this time begins a regular system of contraband 
trade between the Americans and the Californians, more or less connived 
at by the local officials. The Yankee traders exchanged manufactured 
goods for otter skins (which were exchanged again in China for teas, 
silks, etc.). The trade was of necessity contraband as the Mexican gov- 
ernment would not, at this time, permit the Californians to trade with any 
one but the home country. 

1797 

Founding of (14) the Mission of San Jose de Guadalupe, in honor 
of Saint Joseph, patron saint of California, near San Jose. 

1797 

Founding of (15) the Mission of San Juan Bautista, in honor of 
Saint John the Baptist, June 24th. 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY S5 

1797 

Founding of (16) the Mission of San Miguel Archangel, in honor of 
Michael, the Archangel, July 25th. 

1797 

Founding of (17) the Mission of San Fernando Rey de Espana, 
September 8th. 

1798 

Founding of (18) the Mission of San Luis Rey de Francia, June 13th. 

1803 

Arrival of the Lelia Byrd, Capt. Shaler, in San Diego harbor. She 
is suspected of contraband trade and ordered to leave. Does not comply 
without having first made sure of a number of otter furs. Is fired upon 
by the fort, but escapes. 

1803 

President Thomas Jefferson concludes the greatest diplomatic 
achievement in the annals of the United States by the acquisition of the 
vast, unbounded region beyond the Mississippi known as Louisiana. Its 
contiguity to California made the later conquest and cession of the latter 
the more easy of accomplishment. 

1803 

James Burney, a captain in the Royal Navy of England, publishes 
his Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific 
Ocean and writes: "In what manner this country came to be distin- 
guished by the name California is left uncertain. It is not believed that 
the name was derived from the natives ; as the missionaries who have since 
resided among the Californians, have not at any time heard of such being 
applied to any port, bay, or part of the country. Some have conjectured 
that on account of the heat of the weather, Cortes formed the name Cali- 
fornia, from the Latin words calida and fornax." 

1803 

First expedition of General Zebulon Montgomery Pike, American 
soldier and explorer, to the headwaters of the Mississippi River, 

1803 

June 26th marks the death of the venerable friar. Padre Fermin 
Francisco de Lasuen at San Carlos, for thirty years a missionary in the 
province and for eighteen years president of the missions. 



36 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1804 

Founding of (19) the Mission Santa Inez^ in the mountains seventy 
miles distant from San Luis Obispo, September 17th. 

1805 

Lewis and Clark, with their company, after a journey of a year and 
a half through, the wilderness, reach the coast November 15th, and look 
upon the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. 

1805 

Previously and subsequently to this date, for a certain period of 
years, the name "The Californians" was popularly current — by which term 
was intended to include solely the Mexican residents in California. 

With the incoming of other nationalities, all being refined by the 
trials and hardships of pioneer life, the term naturally broadened in 
later years so as to include all citizens of California, its earlier import 
losing its significance. 

1806 

General Zebulon Montgomery Pike completes a great exploring tour 
of the middle west in which he crosses the plains to the site of Denver, 
and discovers "Pike's Peak," then turning southward to the head waters 
of the Rio Grande. 

1806 

Nikolai Petrovich Rezanoff, representative of the Czar of Russia, 
visits the Russian colony in Alaska, and seeing the immediate necessity of 
providing the colony with food nearer than that sent from China, decides 
to visit California to open negotiations with the government for the pur- 
chase of breadstuffs, of which California had a surplus ; and also with the 
ultimate end in view of founding within the limits of California a Russian 
colony. 

1810 

William Alden Gale, a Boston trader, visits California as a clerk on 
the Albatross and becomes noted by his nickname, Cuatro Ojos, by reason 
of his spectacles; but his name was also translated into Tormenta, "a 
gale"; and he was sometimes called Cambalache, or a "barter." He was 
the pioneer in the hide trade with Boston. 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 37 

1811 

Appears Alexander von Humboldt's Political Essay on New Spain, 
which contains references to the early voyages to California. 

1812 

The Russian settlement is eventually founded at Bodega Bay, and 
called Fort Ross. It is more properly a trading post and ship-yard than 
a fort. A lively trade with California was kept up for the support of the 
colony at Sitka, and with Europe and Asia in the export of skins. But in 
the end the otter and seal became scarce and the fort was disposed of to 
John Augustus Sutter. 

1813 

The Spanish Cortes passes a decree looking toward the secularization 
of the missions. From the beginning the idea had been that the mission 
system was only a temporary expedient for the civilization of the natives, 
and was supposed to last but ten years. This time was extended as it 
was seen to be too short. But there began to grow a feeling of dissatis- 
faction with the system as it was felt the Indians were not trained in 
independence and in the knowledge of citizenship. The government decided 
that the missions should be secularized, that is the Indians were to receive 
their lands to use individually — the missions had only ostensibly been 
keepers of the lands for the rightful owners, the Indians. The religious 
work was to be turned over to parish priests, and the missionaries were 
to seek new fields. The Indians were to be gathered into pueblos to learn 
the duties of self government and self-support. This plan was not carried 
out for twenty years, though it came up again and again in the inter- 
vening years. This scheme of secularizing the California missions 
amounted in effect to government confiscation. 

1813-1814 

Appears the account of the Langsdorff expedition of 1803-1807. The 
Russian, Rezanoff, was one of this expedition. 

1814 

John Gilroy, a Scotchman, born as John Cameron, is the first for- 
eigner to settle permanently in California. Having run away from home, 
he comes as a sailor on the ship Isaac Todd and is left sick and stranded 
at Monterey. He is baptized at San Carlos as Juan Antonio Maria Gilroy. 



38 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1816 

Otto von Kotzebue, commanding a scientific expedition from Russia, 
visits California. In the party was Dr. Eschscholtz, for whom the Cali- 
fornia poppy was named, Eschscholtzia California. The published ac- 
count of this expedition forms a very valuable contribution to the scientific 
literature of the period and the place. 

1816 

Thomas W. Doak is the first American settler in California. He 
was a native of Boston and came to the Pacific coast on the Albatross. He 
was baptized at San Carlos as Felipe Santiago. 

1817 

Founding of (20) Mission of San Rafael, near San Francisco, 
December 18th. 

1818 

The first man to whom English was a native tongue reaches Los 
Angeles — Joseph Chapman from Massachusetts, a member of the crew of 
that Bouchard, who sailing under letters of marque, ravages the coast of 
California, in 1818. He marries Sefiorita Guadalupe Ortega, builds the 
first grist mill in southern California at San Gabriel, and lived for some 
thirty years as Jose, El Ingles. 

1769-1821 

Spanish regime in California has now lasted under, successively, ten 
governors, namely: 

Don Gaspar de Portola, 

Felipe de Barri, 

Felipe de Neve, 

Pedro Fages, 

Jose Antonio Romeu, 

Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga, 

Diego de Borica, 

Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga, 

Jose Dario Arguello, 

Pablo Vicente de Sola, last of the Spanish governors, held over until 
1822. 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 39 

1769-1821 

Marks the Spanish era of California during which is built the historic 
El Camino Real — the King's Highway — which finally connected the twen- 
ty-one Franciscan missions, over a stretch of seven hundred miles of its 
length between San Diego and Sonoma, and which was traveled by the 
lonely Indian, Franciscan friar, the religious neophyte, the soldier and 
adventurer, and has become the subject of song and story for many a year. 

1821 

Spanish era ends, when Don Augustin de Iturbidc, at the head of a 
victorious army, throws oflF the yoke of Spain and establishes the inde- 
pendence of Mexico, and, creating a separate empire, becomes himself 
Emperor Augustin I. California passes under jurisdiction of the Mexican 
Emperor, whose agents plan a seizure of the missions. 

182M846 

Mexican era continues for twenty-five years under the governors — 

Pablo Vicente de Sola, 

Luis Antonio Arguello, 

Jose Maria de Eschendia, 

Manuel Victoria, 

Pio Pico, 

Jose Figueroa, 

Jose Castro, 

Nicholas Gutierrez, 

Mariano Chico, 

Juan Bautista Alvarado, 

Manuel Micheltorena, 

Pio Pico again, who was the last Mexican governor. 

1823 

San Vincente, the agent from the new government of Mexico to 
California, enters into a contract with an English trading company for 
the sale of all the hides and tallow of the province. 

1823 

Founding of (21) the last Mission, that of Saint Francis of Solano, 
near the present city of Sonoma. 



40 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1824 

Indian uprising at Santa Ynez. 

1826 

Captain Jedediah S. Smithy under permit from the United States to 
hunt in the far west, and his party of hunters and trappers^ are the first 
Americans to go overland across the continent to California. 

1826-1827 

Visit to San Francisco and Monterey of the English ship, Blossom, 
Capt. Frederick William Beechey. He publishes a full account of his 
voyage in which he speaks at length of the necessity of Spain's taking 
more active interest in the affairs of California if she wished to hold the 
country. "It is too important to be permitted to remain in its present 
neglected state," thus fore-shadowing the intervention of some foreign 
power. 

1827-1828 

Visit of the Frenchman, Auguste Duhaut-Cilly. Of contemporary 
accounts of California, this of Duhaut-Cilly's is the most extensive. 

1829 

Abel Stearns, a native of Massachusetts, becomes a resident of Cali- 
fornia, acquires extensive holdings of land and other property rights from 
the Mexican government and is a notable character for his day. 

1829 

Captain James P. Arthur visits California in the Brookline and 
makes the claim to have been the first to raise the United States flag in 
California. This was, of course, a crude representation of the emblem. 

"Arthur and his little party were sent ashore at San Diego to cure 
hides. They had a barn-like structure of wood, provided by the ship's 
carpenter, which answered the purpose of storehouse, curing shop, and 
residence. The life was lonesome enough. Upon the wide expanse of 
the Pacific they occasionally discerned a distant ship. Somtimes a vessel 
sailed near the lower offing. It was thus that the idea of preparing and 
raising a flag, for the purpose of attracting attention, occurred to them. 
The flag was manufactured from some shirts and Captain Arthur writes, 




T K 



C o 



o s 1 t e 



m e r 1 c a n 



A Man of many bloods, for that of tlic IMlgrirn and Puritan, of 
the Dutch, of the German, of the Scotch, of the Irish, of the 
Spanish, of the Catholic, of the Huguenot, and many others, flow 
commingled in his veins. A Man of many precious traditions; a 
Man of peculiar intellectual power; a Man of versatile and wide 
social achievements; a Man of religious conviction, strong senti- 
ment, high courage and thrifty activities. The vindication of his 
course is his ultimate Americanism. 

In the pioneer days of California, many nationalities were 
represented. Different races of men and women met upon a com- 
mon j)lane and endured the same hardships of frontier life. As 
it were, they were melted and fused together. The refinement 
of the process led to a better civilization, an ultimate and triumph- 
ant Americanism. 

Vide page 44 




The Coming of The Forty-Niners 

No migrations of any people in all the history of the world are 
coniparahle to the small companies and larger caravans of the 
courageous "Argonauts," who came to California in 1849. It is a 
distinctive epoch in American history; a mighty movement, re- 
sulting in an expansion of territory and the discovery of a store- 
house of the natural products of the earth, never in similar degree 
hlessing any other nation. 

This quest for mineral wealth as an avenue to individual pros- 
perity induced the seeker to travel far from home, over long and 
dangerous trails. Nothing arduous or inimical served to repel him. 
He came to search for gold — and he found it. And there was 
added to California life another element of heneficent citizenship. 



V}df piigf 49 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 41 

with the just accuracy of a historian, that Mr. Greene's calico shirt fur- 
nished the blue, while he furnished the red and white. It was completed 
and raised on a Sunday, on the occasion of the arrival of the schooner, 
Washington, Captain Thompson of the Sandwich Islands, but sailing un- 
der the American flag." So writes honest Captain Arthur: "These men 
raised our national ensign, not in bravado, nor for war and conquest, but 
as honest men to show that they were American citizens and wanted 
company," 

1829 

Alfred Robinson, a native of Massachusetts, comes to California as 
clerk for the Boston trading company, Bryant, Sturges & Company. Mr. 
Robinson marries Ana Maria de la Guerra y Noriega, and becomes one 
of the early and respected American settlers. He publishes his Life in 
California in 1840, one of the best books of the period. 

1831 

David Douglas, the famous Scotch botanist, visits California in an 
earnest and adventurous search for botanical specimens. He examines 
California flora and ten years later the botanical results of his trip are 
published by Sir William Hooker. 

1831 

Insurrection against the Mexican governor, Manuel Victoria, headed 
by such prominent Californians as Echeandfa, Pio Pico, Juan Bandini, and 
others, as the result of the spirit of the growing liberalism and democratic 
principles — the very principles which made the American occupation so 
possible later — against the arbitrary methods and militarism of the gover- 
nor, as shown principally in his refusal to convene the disputacion. For 
the first time in the history of California, blood is shed between men of 
Spanish extraction in a bout on the outskirts of Los Angeles, in which 
Captain Romualdo Pacheco and Avila were killed, and the Governor him- 
self severely wounded. Pablo de Fortilla, Commandante at San Diego, 
participates. 

1833 

Further secularization of the missions by Mexican authority is under- 
taken as well as confiscation of their property. The action really went 
into effect then although it was not fully consummated until 1845. 



42 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

Under rules known as Prevenciones de Emancipacion the missions 
are secularized. All Indians, Christians for twelve years, all married 
men and widowers with families, and all such as are competent to make a 
livelihood, are gathered together in pueblos and initiated in the laws of 
self-government. To each family is granted house-lots, planting lots and 
pasture lands, and live stock. The mission churches are turned over to 
the parish clergy and the other properties are sold. 

1834 

Jose Maria Padres, a native of Pueblo, having become a military 
leader under the Mexicans with the commission of Lieutenant-Colonel, 
associating with Jose Maria Hi jar, devises the Hi jar and Padre's col- 
onization scheme and comes to California as a director of a colony of 
260 persons. 

1835 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr., voyages to San Francisco Bay in the 
trading brig Pilgrim, afterwards transferred to the Alert, and later re- 
counts his experiences and describes California in his book Two Years 
before the Mast. 

1835 

San Diego becomes a municipality, but remains such only three years, 
as the population decreases to such an extent that in 1838 there were not 
enough people to entitle it to a council. De Morfras reckons the popula- 
tion to be between one hundred and one hundred and fifty. From 1838 
to the Mexican War, San Diego is governed as part of the sub-prefecture 
of Los Angeles. 

1835 

Near the best anchorage and three miles northeast of the Mission, a 
small trading village, Yerba Buena, is founded on San Francisco Bay, 
and it is to this settlement rather than to the presidio of San Francisco 
or the mission of Dolores that must be given the origin of the present city 
of San Francisco. 

1836 

A new revolution is started in California against existing authority. 
This was decidedly the outcome of the same growing spirit of democracy 
and liberalism as shown under the Victoria revolt. It is a revolt by the 
younger California, the spirit of liberalism and democracy, under Juan 
Bautista Alvarado, a young clerk of the customs, against the spirit of 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 43 

centralization and despotism of the Mexican government as evinced in 
the new constitution, in which all departments of the government, legis- 
lative, executive, and judicial were practically in the hands of the central 
executive in Mexico. California was reduced to a department of that 
government and could not be considered as exercising the functions of a 
state. However, this revolt is successful and California is created a 
separate and independent government with Alvarado as governor. 

1836 

One of the central figures in the Revolution of 1836 is Isaac Graham, 
who had been a Tennessee hunter, and who organizes what became known 
as the Kentucky Riflemen; this adventurous character is described as wild, 
reckless, a crack shot, and a hater of Mexicans. Operating from his 
distillery at San Juan, he is aided in his organizing of the riflemen by 
William R. Garner and John Coppinger, both Englishmen, and Louis 
Pombert, a Frenchman, of some prominence in early California affairs, is 
made sergeant, that is, next in command to Graham. 

1839 

John Augustus Sutter, a Swiss, comes to California with the idea of 
forming a colony of his countrymen, a sort of Swiss Utopia. He becomes 
a naturalized Mexican citizen and receives a grant of eleven square 
leagues of land along the Sacramento River. He buys Fort Ross from 
the Russians. 

1839-1840 

Thomas Jefferson Farnham, a native of Maine, travels overland to 
Oregon; makes a voyage on the Pacific to the Hawaiian Islands and 
returns to California and back to the United States through Mexico. He 
publishes in 1846 an account of his Adventures in California and Scenes 
on the Pacific Coast. 

1840 

Monterey becomes the capital of California, so designated by the 
Mexican junta under the presidency of Alvarado. 

1840 

Arrival of Eugene Duflot de Mofras, a Frenchman, commissioned by 
his government to make a scientific exploration and report on Oregon and 
the Californias. M. de Mofras was assisted in every way by both the 
secular and religious authorities of California, and he was given access 



44 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

to all the documentary material of the province^ so it was possible for him 
to make a more complete report on the affairs of the country than could 
any of the other narrators. From the mass of material he had the 
literary judgment to arrange and select a work of marked ability, dis- 
crimination and historic value. 

1840 

Threatened uprising of the foreign element known as the Graham 
Trouble. Forty-six suspects, English and Americans, are captured and 
exiled to Mexico. About twenty of them are purged of conspiracy and 
allowed to return to California and granted compensation. 

The revolution headed by the Carrillos and supported by a small party 
of Americans under the Tennesseean named Graham is of short duration 
and is soon put down. General Jose Castro and Mariano Vallejo, names 
to become famous in California history, come into prominence. 

1840-1841 

Sir James Douglas, a Scotchman, and representative of the Hudson's 
Bay Company of London, visits California and records the events of his 
visit in a diary or journal, which later receives the title of Douglas' 
Voyage From the Columbia to California. With the Salinas and Santa 
Clara valleys the English visitor was so delighted that he was moved to 
pronounce California "a country in many respects unrivalled by any other 
part of the globe." 

1841 

Captain John Augustus Sutter builds a fort, which he calls "New 
Helvetia," and which becomes headquarters for friendly Indians, white 
trappers and early travelers. "Sutter's Fort," as it was popularly called, 
was in the natural line of travel both from the Oregon country and from the 
east, and Sutter being an exceedingly hospitable person, his place became 
the rendezvous and the Mecca for all the overland travelers. Many of 
them remained there under Sutter's employ and many went to other places. 

At no other single point of entry into California did so many different 
nationalities first come, temporarily adjust themselves to the new con- 
ditions and then scatter to make permanent homes for themselves on the 
Western Coast. California became a melting pot of civilization, out of 
which a patriotic American citizenship was to be refined. 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 45 

1841 

First overland emigrant train, under John Bidwell, called Bartleson- 
Bidwell Company, crosses the Great Plains and reaches California. 

1842 

Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones, American naval officer, cruis- 
ing in western waters, lands and captures the town of Monterey, under 
the erroneous impression that war had been declared against Mexico. He 
holds possession for just one day. 

1843 

Stephen Smith, a native of Baltimore, arrives in California with the 
first steam engine ever seen upon the coast; also, he brings with him three 
pianos, which are the first ever heard in California. He receives com- 
mission from the Mexican authorities and in I844< erects both a saw-mill 
and a grist-mill. 

1842-1843 

General John Charles Fremont's first expedition to the west. } 

1843-1844 

General Fremont's second overland trip to the west for the purpose 
of surveying a route to the Pacific, and his first to California. He comes 
by the way of Carson's river and Johnson's Pass. 

1845 

Annexation of Texas, March 1st. ^ 

1845 

Fremont's second expedition to California. Suspicion is aroused by 
the California government and he is ordered to leave the department. This 
Fremont refuses to do and fortifies himself on Gavlin's Peak, and raises 
the American flag. But he quits his defences and departs for Oregon. 

1846 

Samuel Brannan, born in Maine, a Mormon elder and chief of a 
colony sent from New York on the Brooklyn, comes to California to take 
charge of a Mormon colonization scheme. 



46 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1846 

Patrick Breen, an Irishman, who first came to America in 1826, 
starts to California overland from Iowa with the Donner party. He and 
his wife, Margaret, and seven children survive the perils of that terrible 
journey. Breen's original Diary of the Donner Party is an authority 
upon the incidents of that journey. 

1846 

Lieut. Archibald Gillespie arrives with dispatches for Fr6mont at 
the receipt of which Fremont returns to California. (May 8th.) 

1846 

One htmdred and seventy horses for General Castro, which rumor 
had, were to be used for the purpose of driving the Americans out of Cali- 
fornia, are seized by Fremont. (June 6th,) 

1846 

Bear Flag Revolution. The flag of "The Republic of California," 
with its lone star and painted image of a grizzly bear, is first raised at 
Sonoma. Captain Ezekiel Merritt, accompanied by William B. Ide and 
a small band of Americans, captures the Mexican General Mariano 
Guadalupe Vallejo and his aides. The new republic lasts twenty-six days. 

1846 

The famous scout. Kit Carson, appears with General Fremont, and 
the Haros and Berreyesa are killed. 

There are so many and such contradictory stories concerning the 
murder of the Haro brothers that the real facts are not definitely known. 
At the very best, the responsibility of the death of the men, justly or 
unjustly, must rest with Fremont and not with Carson. This has been 
one of the scandals of the Fremont Expedition. The most violent sup- 
porters of Fremont do not deny that the men were killed without knowing 
anything of their guilt or innocence. It was reported that they were 
killed in revenge for the murder of two Americans, Cowie and Fowler. 
There was also a story circulated that the men had deliberately permitted 
themselves to be captured with false orders in their boots purporting to 
announce an attack on Sonoma by the Californians, for the purpose of 
deflecting the American troops to the protection of Sonoma, and thus per- 
mit the closely pressed Californians to escape. 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 47 

1846 

War declared between Mexico and the United States, May 8rd. The 
American flag raised at Monterey, July 7th, by Commodore John Drake 
Sloat, 

1846 

Josefa Bandini de Carrillo, the wife of Don Pedro Carrillo, who had 
been appointed provisional governor of California in 1837, manufactures 
with her own hands the first United States flag in full and proper form 
ever unfurled to the breezes of sunny California; this is on the occasion 
of the arrival in San Diego of Commodore Stockton of the United States 
Navy and General Kearney of the United States Army. Commodore 
Stockton raises the silk flag to the masthead of the first American war 
ship ever to sail the Pacific Ocean. 

1846 

Commodore Robert F. Stockton arrives at the Port of Monterey and 
Commodore Sloat appoints Stockton Commander-in-Chief of the American 
forces, and the latter undertakes the conquest of California against the 
Mexican General Jose Castro. 

1846 

Commodore Robert F. Stockton takes possession of San Diego for the 
United States and establishes a fort there which is still known as Fort 
Stockton. 

1846 

Los Angeles is easily captured. Stockton and Fremont enter the 
city August 1 3th without opposition ; Pico and Castro have fled to Mexico ; 
and Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie is placed in command of the south 
with Los Angeles as headquarters and with orders to maintain martial 
law. Trouble arises through, possibly, a too strict interpretation of his 
orders, and Gillespie finds himself surrounded. He capitulates and is 
allowed to retreat with the honors of war. 

The Californians who identify themselves with this revolt are Captain 
Jose Maria Flores, Jose Antonio Carrillo, Andres Pico, and Serbulo 
Varela. 



48 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1846 

A party of Americans under B. D. Wilson while hunting for Castro 
are met by a company of Californians at the Chino Ranch near Los 
Angeles, and a skirmish ensues in which three Americans are wounded 
and one Calif ornian is killed. 

1846 

Arrival of General Stephen W. Kearney, who has just completed the 
conquest of New Mexico. He and Gillespie meet the Californians under 
Andres Pico at San Pasquale, December 6th, and a bloody battle ensues 
with serious loss to the Americans; and Kearney was only rescued from 
his perilous position by a detachment of Stockton's men. It is the only 
battle of any importance in the history of California. 

1846-1847 

The Donner party, consisting of eighty-jfour persons, in an overland 
trip from Independence, Missouri, are caught in the snows of the high 
Sierras, and through starvation and exposure, over forty of them perish 
before relief arrives. 

1847 

Yerba Buena exchanges its name for that of the Mission and the 
Bay of San Francisco. 

1847 

Monterey becomes the military capital of California, under the occu- 
pation by United States authority. 

1847 

Los Angeles is recaptured January 10th and the famous treaty is 
signed between Colonel John C. Fremont, as Commander of the American 
forces, and Andres Pfco, Commandante of the California forces, at a point 
near Cahuenga Pass, within the present limits of Hollywood, in Los 
Angeles. With this capitulation all of California comes under the United 
States rule. 

1848 

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2nd, terminates the Mexican 
War, by the terms of which California is ceded to the United States; its 




XKe Development of a Great State 

It was first only an Indian path, if path at all, which linked 
settlement, fort and mission in the early days. This was traveled 
for miles, almost the entire length of the present State, by the 
monk and friar in their pious administrations to the Indians. Soon 
the El Camino Real was the established marked of a course or line 
of travel on the "Kings Highway." It is a far cry back to those 
days. A look forward then could not have unfolded to the wildest 
imagination the growth, devcloj)ment and prosperity to follow. 
When the first locomotive reached the Pacific Coast it revealed an 
advance in civilization of uinisual degree, yet it was but the 
dawning of another morning of achievement — the beginning of a 
greater commonwealth. 



Vuli' pagf 50 




'/■U'C/y/i/' 



A Pinnacle of Acnievement, in Panorama 

So is California. Her history is ancient. Her course has been 
sturdy and romantic. Her gracious resources abound and multi- 
ply. Her majestic scenery is unsurpassed. Her people delight 
in a happy, prosperous environment. 

The hand of civilization has builded on her mountains and in her 
valleys. The artificial has blended with the natural, all the more 
beauteous in adornment and all the more useful in individual 
betterment. 

First came the Indian, from whence is unknown. Then came 
the adventurer and explorer. Then, the Spanish cavalier and 
Franciscan friar. Finally, many others, thousands to love and 
enjoy this land of golden plenteousness. 



Four centurief^, 1510-1915 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 49 

affairs are committed to the charge of Colonel Richard B. Mason. He 
became the military governor succeeding Kearney. By the treaty of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo, Texas, the western part of Colorado and New Mexico, 
all of the present states of Arizona, Nevada, Utah and California, an 
extensive and valuable portion of the Great West, were ceded to the United 
States. 

1848 

James Wilson Marshall, a native of New Jersey, discovers gold at 
Sutter's Mill, January 24th, and the rush of gold-seekers to California 
commences. The exact day of the month that gold was discovered has 
never been settled; Marshall himself says, "on or about the nineteenth." 
But he also says he is not sure of the date. However, a man named Bigler, 
who kept a diary, has the date the twenty-fourth, and as he was on the 
spot at the time, most likely it is correct. 

1849 

In February, is witnessed the arrival in San Francisco Bay of the 
steamship California from New York with the first party of gold seekers 
from the Atlantic States. In March, the Oregon arrives, and in June there 
are two hundred square-rigged vessels lying in the Bay. 

1849 

During this year the numerous and mighty caravans of horses, wagons, 
cattle, men, women and children make their devious and dangerous jour- 
neys across the overland trails. This is the coming of the "Argonauts," 
celebrated in California history as the "Forty-Niners." 

1849 

This year marks two important developments: (a) The growth of 
population during this period. In 1845, the estimated census was 18,000, 
including Indians, while in 1850 it was estimated at 150,000. (b) The 
struggle for order, for this was not a period of complete recklessness. 
There were many reckless people, many criminals, and much to try the 
temper of the most conservative, but still there arose and grew a steady 
respect for law and order that had its final outcome in the convention 
and constitution. 



50 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1849 

A constitutional convention is organized at Monterey, September 1st. 
The Californians, in framing a State Constitution, which is signed October 
13th, exclude slavery from the soil by a unanimous vote. Under it Peter 
H. Burnett is elected Governor, and the new Legislature chooses John C. 
Fremont and William M. Gwin as United States senators. San Jose is 
made the capital of the State. The great seal of the State is designed by 
Major Robert Selden Garnett, is presented to convention by Caleb Lyon, 
and is engraved by Albrecht Kuner in changed form. Hittell, an eminent 
authority, says: "The constitution, notwithstanding its haste, was one 
of the best, if not the best, of the thirty-one state constitutions in effect 
at the time. Though nearly every portion was copied from some other 
instrument, there was a rare choice and combination." By the terms of 
the constitution, slavery was unanimously voted down; the boundary was 
defined ; provisions were made for the establishment of public schools ; and 
the question of taxation was settled. 

1849 

The necessity of an interior city being felt, and the site of Sutter's 
Fort being inadequate, a new town-site was laid out below the fort. Town 
lots were sold and Sacramento had its beginning. In January, 1849, the 
first frame house was built. 

1850 

California admitted to the Union September 9th. California is at 
last admitted after months of waiting and dilatory action on the part of 
Congress. She comes in a free and sovereign state with her own consti- 
tution, governor and legislature, the only state in the Union with this 
distinction. 

1849-1851 

Occur at short intervals, the five big fires, in which the city of San 
Francisco is almost completely destroyed, property to the value of twenty- 
five million dollars being burned up in the conflagrations. 

1851 

First Vigilance Committee. As protection against the outlawry and 
crime of the city, the citizens of San Francisco organize themselves into 



CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 51 

a vigilance committee, with regular constitution binding them "to perform 
every lawful act for the maintenance of law and order, and to sustain the 
law when properly administered; but not to be deterred in the punish- 
ment of any crime by any quibble of the law, by the insecurity of the 
prisons, or the corruption or laxity of those in authority." An occasion 
soon occurred for their action. A man accused of theft was caught with 

the stolen goods, tried, sentenced to be shot, and the sentence duly carried 
out. 

1851 

Capital of State removed to Vallejo. 

1852 

Appears Francisco Saverio Clavijero's Historia de la Antigua 6 
Baja California. 

1852-1854 

• \ 

Sacramento swept by two disastrous fires partially destroying the r 

town. 

1853 

Capital of State located at Benicia. 

1854 

Capital of State finally removed to Sacramento. 

1856 

Second Vigilance Committee. On May 15th, the Vigilance Com- 
mittee is again organized for the purpose of punishing one James Casey, 
who had murdered James King of William, editor of the Evening Bulletin, 
and the champion of the cause of law and order. As before, the Vigilance 
Committee duly tried the prisoner and sentenced him to death along with 
another murderer named Cora. 

1856 

The first railroad in California is opened for business with Sacra- 
mento and Folsom as its terminals. 

1859 

Convention held in San Francisco for a Pacific railroad, subsequently 
constructed over the Sierra Nevada mountains. 



52 CALIFORNIA CHRONOLOGY 

1859 

September 13th, David Colbreth Broderick, United States Senator 
from California, engages in a duel with David S. Terry, in vphich 
Broderick is killed. The challenge grows out of the anti-slavery agita- 
tion, in which Senator Broderick is an uncompromising opponent of slavery 
and delivers severe strictures on the subject in the California campaign 
of this year. This is an important event as it was the culmination of an 
important period. 

1860 

Application of name "California" in 1510, considered by the noted 
American writer, Edward Everett Hale (Proceedings American Anti- 
quarian Society, April 80th, 1862, p. 45; Atlantic Monthly, vol. xiii, 
p. 265). 

ORRA EUGENE MONNETTE. 



GENEALOGICAL AND HISTORICAL COMPILATIONS 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

Five Isaac Kendalls of Ashford, Connecticut, (1908). 

Israel Clark, an Ohio Pioneer, (1908). 

John C. Fremont Hull, a Distinguished Ohio Citizen, (1909). 

A Janeway Lineage; William Francis Janeway of Columbus, Ohio, (1910). 

The Hull Family in America — New Jersey Branch, (1910). 

(The foregoing appeared in the magazine. Old Northwest Genealog- 
ical Quarterly.) 

Poncet Stelle, Sieur Des Lorieres, a Huguenot, and Some of His New 
Jersey Descendants. 

{The Grafton Magazine of History and Genealogy, 1910.) 

Monnet Family Genealogy, a Huguenot Lineage. (Large royal octavo 
volume, 1800 pages, 171 illustrations, 1911). 

Ramsey Ancestry of Ensign William Ramsey of the Revolution. 

(New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 1912). 

Contributed "Hull,' '"Monnette," and "Ramsey" articles in Colonial Famil- 
ies of the United States of America, (Vol. Ill, 1912). 

Contributed "Landy Cory Clark," "Janeway," "Monnette," "Scribner," 
"Slagle," and "Abraham Smith" articles in Colonial Families, etc., 
(Vol. IV, 1914). 

Editor, Spirit of Patriotism, 1916 Year Book of Society, Sons of the 
Revolution, in the State of California. 

Richard Higgins of Plymouth and Eastham, Massachusetts, and Piscata- 
way. New Jersey, and Some of His Descendants. 

(To appear in October, 1916 issue of New York Genealogical and 
Biographical Record.) 

First Settlers of Piscataway and Woodbridge, New Jersey, {in prepara- 
tion). 



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